Don and Marcia
by PuckHoneycomb
Summary: *I know Marcia would be a sophomore in '74 but I pushed her birthday two years back to fit things* Don Powers is in a rock band with his friends Dallas, Johnny, and Trey. They meet their new neighbors, the Bradys, and Don is smitten by their eldest daughter, Marcia.
1. Baby, You're a Rich Man

"How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people? Now that you know who you are? What do you-wait, hey, stop, stop! Don, what are you doing?"

"Huh?" Don Powers asked, awakening from his daze. He loosened the guitar strap upon his shoulders.

"You're not even playing, dude!" his friend Dallas Wallace said.

"Sorry, my mind's just trailing off," Don said. "Let's take it again from the top."

"Our performance is on Friday," Don's friend to the right of Dallas, Johnny McGuire, said.

"It's Monday, man, it's alright," Don responded, tightening his grasp on his guitar pick and strumming a G7 chord.

"Yeah, but you know we've always got things to do on the first day of school," his other friend, Trey Leary, said behind him. "Can you believe that summer ends on Wednesday?"

"Yeah, Trey, don't remind us," Dallas said, and he lowered his microphone slightly. "Now let's take it from the top. Ready?"

It was September 5th, 1976. Dallas, Don, Johnny, and Trey were all in a rock band together. Dallas was their lead singer and rhythm guitarist; he was short, had brownish-blue eyes, and straggly brown hair. Don stood roughly an inch taller than him; he was the band's lead guitarist. He had blondish-brown hair and was the skinniest member of the group. Johnny was their bassist, the tallest of the group, despite only standing about 5'11", and inch and a half taller than Don. He had reddish-brown hair and crystal blue eyes. Trey, their drummer, was the shortest, only 5'6", and he was the only African-American of the group. The band hadn't come up with a good enough name for themselves yet, though they needed one for when they performed at their high school, Chenango Falls, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. There was a talent show-like event being held on Friday for their return. The band was entering their sophomore year.

"Baby, you're a rich man, too!" Dallas concluded, nailing the last line of the classic Beatles song. Don outperformed Dallas at guitar easily, but Don couldn't sing at all, while Dallas had natural talent in the field. Johnny was also quite good at singing, though maybe not as talented, and often sang backup.

"Alright, so do we want to use this?" Johnny asked. "I don't think we should do _My Generation._ We totally bombed it."

"We weren't exactly top-notch at _Baby, You're a Rich Man_ either," Dallas said, sounding slightly irate.

" _Blitzkrieg Bop_ is fun and it's a cinch, how's about that?" Trey suggested.

" _Blitzkrieg_ 's good, but what else?" Johnny asked. "Don?"

"Huh?" Don asked, glancing upward from his guitar. "Oh, sorry. Yeah, let's do _Blitzkrieg._ "

"What are you thinking about over there?" Trey asked. Don shrugged.

"You wanna do _The Joker_?" Dallas asked.

"Are you kidding?" Johnny asked. "The school'd throw a fit!"

" _Joker, smoker, midnight toker?"_ Don recited. "Do you think that'd make it past school censors?"

"Who gives a damn about the censors?" Dallas asked. "Wouldn't it just be fun to piss that relic Stevenson off?"

"Principal Stevenson already hates you, Dal," Trey chortled. "He could expel you."

"Who cares?" Dallas asked, and he glared. "So what do you guys suggest?"

"I thought we did _Baby, You're a Rich Man_ well enough," Don said.

"Yeah, but nobody likes the Beatles nowadays, unfortunately," Dallas said, scratching his cheek. "They've been broken up too long."

"Nobody's in to rock 'n' roll anymore," Johnny twittered. "It's all about disco these days."

"Whatever, we can do _Rich Man_ , it doesn't bother me," Dallas said, and he kicked the air slightly. Don pulled open the garage blinds and peered out the window.

"My parents are pullin' in from work," Don announced. "Dallas, do you wanna stay for dinner?"

"Yeah, thanks, man," he responded. Dallas came from a broken home, just down the street in a rickety, tumbledown house. His father had left him and his mother when he was only a baby and he could hardly remember him, and his mother and stepfather weren't much better to him.

"You guys can stay too," Don said to Johnny and Trey, not wanting to leave them out. He walked into his yard and stood face-to-face with his mother, Bonnie Powers, and his father, David Powers.

"Hey, Don, how's practicing going?" Bonnie greeted cheerily.

"Really well, I think we're going to rock the performance Friday," Don responded and Bonnie and David nodded with smiles upon their faces. "Do you mind if Dallas, Johnny, and Trey stay for dinner?"

"Well, alright," David said after looking at his wife for approval. "If they want to sleep over too, that's fine, just no screwin' around." Don knew that his parents were especially lenient when it came to Dallas, as they loved him almost like a son and didn't want him to go home to his verbally abusive home. He was rebellious, but he had a charm to him. And since Don was an only child, they had food to spare to Trey and Johnny.

"After dinner, we're all going next-door to meet the new neighbors," Bonnie told Don. "I'm going to bake a cherry pie for them."

"New neighbors?" Don asked. "Somebody's finally moving into that house? Didn't Mr. Cruthers die almost a year ago?"

"Yeah, well, just be good, okay?" Bonnie asked. "That goes for all of you. I don't know much about them. I just know their last name. What was it, David? The Bradleys?"

"No, honey, the Bradys," David said. "They're the Bradys."


	2. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

"Dinner was great, Mrs. Powers," Dallas said kindly.

"Thank you, honey," Bonnie said as she took the boys' plates. "What about you, Don? The London broil wasn't too burnt for you?"

"No, Mom, it was fine," Don answered.

"You four can go out and practice for a little while longer if you want," Bonnie informed them. "The cherry pie's got fifteen minutes or so of cooling left."

Don, Dallas, Johnny, and Trey were now sitting around in the garage, neglecting to practice. Trey spun his drumsticks in between his fingers, Johnny tinkered with a bassline, Dallas gazed skyward, and Don just twiddled his thumbs.

"Did you write that, Johnny?" Trey asked.

"I think so," Johnny replied, continuing to strum his bass. "Unless I subconsciously ripped it off of something."

"You guys really don't wanna do _The Joker_?" Dallas asked, sounding bored.

"You already got suspended for a week last year for that pack of cigarettes, man," Don said, picking his head up from the table. "We can't take a risk."

"The instruments'll be loud anyhow," Dallas argued. "He probably won't even hear 'smoker' or 'toker'. Besides, do you think Principal Stevenson knows what a toker is?"

"It doesn't matter, Dallas, we're not doing that song," Johnny said, placing his bass down.

"Hey, Don, I think I see two of your new neighbors," Trey observed.

"Are they hot?" Dallas asked.

"They're guys." Dallas shrugged and Don and Johnny stood up and walked to the window and gazed alongside Trey.

"What the hell are they doing?" Don asked. There were two boys, both with curly brown hair. One looked to be roughly eight while the other looked like he could be close to Don's age, though maybe younger by a year or two.

"I don't know much about sports, but I'm pretty sure that's not one," Johnny said. The boys were tossing tennis balls into baskets and then running and tackling each other.

"They probably just made somethin' up," Dallas said, sitting by the garage door and not bothering to peer out the window.

"Alright, Don, your mother finished her pie," David said as he opened the door. "Let's head over to the Bradys' house. Be on your best behavior, all of you. It's really important to your mom that we make a good impression."

"Sure, Dad," Don said, and he and his friends filed out the door and over to the house next-door. Bonnie walked up the front doorsteps and rung the doorbell.

"Hello," a woman with short blond hair and blue eyes said. "Are you all our new neighbors?"

"Hi, we're the Powers," Bonnie said. "I'm Bonnie. This is my husband, David, and my son, Don. These are his friends, Johnny, Trey, and Dallas."

"Very nice to meet you all," the woman said. "My name is Carol. Let me call the family to meet you all. And thank you so much." Bonnie handed her the pie. "Mike!" Carol called.

"Yes, dear?" came the voice of her husband, and he eventually appeared in the doorway. Mike Brady had curled blackish-brown hair and stood about 6'3". "Oh, hello, you must be our neighbors." Next to Mike was one of his sons that Don did not watch from the garage window. He looked to be much older than Don and was almost a spitting image of his father with curly blackish-brown hair and hazel eyes.

"Oh, hi, you all, I'm Greg," the son introduced. "Was that you guys playing the music earlier?"

"Yeah, that was us," Johnny said, the smoothest talker of the group. "We're in a band. I play bass, Trey here plays drums, Don plays lead guitar, and Dallas sings and plays rhythm."

"That's far-out," Greg said. "Do you all live on this street?" Johnny nodded. "Groovy. I play guitar myself."

"Greg graduated high school this past June," Carol informed the group. "He goes to college late this month."

"I've got to get going," Greg said, striding outside. "It was nice meeting you all."

"Greg wanted to catch a glimpse of the town," Carol said. "Pennsylvania's much different from California."

"I'm sure," Bonnie chuckled.

"Go! Hurry!" came the squeaky, pubescent voice of a boy, and the two kids Don had seen through the garage window were running toward the house. The youngest boy tried tackling the elder one, but he was able to shake him off and through a tennis ball into a basket. "Yes!"

"Peter, Bobby, come here!" Mike ordered.

"These are our other two sons, Peter and Bobby," Carol introduced. "Kids, these are our new neighbors, the Powers."

"Pleasure to meet you," the oldest, Peter, said.

"Peter is thirteen in the eighth grade and Bobby turned nine last month," Carol said. "Now you just have to meet our three daughters."

"Wow," Bonnie said playfully. "You sure have a lot of children."

"Our daughters are from Carol's previous marriage and the sons are from mine," Mike explained. "Marcia! Jan! Cindy! Come here!" Three blond girls appeared in the doorway. "How old are you guys?"

"We're going into sophomore year Wednesday," Don spoke.

"Well, that's perfect," Carol said. "Marcia is going into sophomore year too and she could use some friends to show her around."

"Sure," Don said, and he gazed at Marcia. Marcia was about 5'3", and Don thought that she was very pretty. She had bright blue eyes, nice legs, and blue eyes like her mother. Behind her stood her younger sister Jan, who was in eighth grade with Peter. She was also very pretty and looked nearly exactly like Marcia. Cindy looked to be about Bobby's age; she was short and stumpy and wore pigtails.

"Hi," Marcia greeted, shaking Don's hand. Don said hello back and Dallas chortled.

"Hey, if any of you guys'd like, there's this neat store down the street called Candyland," Johnny said. "It's pretty far-out, and real cheap too."

"Oh, yeah, we saw that passin' by," Peter said, mouth agape.

"We'd love to go," Jan said, and Marcia, Bobby, and Cindy all nodded, the latter two showing tremendous excitement in their faces.

"Well, sure, it's okay with me," Carol said.

"Be on your best behavior, you two," Mike said to Bobby and Cindy, who nodded.

"Have a good time, and be back by at least nine," Bonnie said, and Don, Dallas, Johnny, and Trey set off out of the Bradys' driveway and into the street with Cindy, Bobby, Jan, Peter, and Marcia behind them. Dallas nudged Don with a smirk broad upon his face. He knew by Don's facial expression that he was enamored with Marcia.


End file.
